


beautiful people

by fleurskth



Category: Original Work
Genre: Asian Character(s), Coming of Age, Teenagers, Youth, young adult
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:22:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21630820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurskth/pseuds/fleurskth
Summary: i don't want to summary the story otherwise there won't be any surprise (english translation of my french work "nous, les imparfaits"





	beautiful people

There was no one that night. Perhaps it was due to the snowflakes that had not stopped falling since the morning. Perhaps it was because it was Sunday and people preferred to remain cloistered at home in their pajamas, comfortably settled in front of TV, rather than facing the cold weather. Be that as it may, just keep those four words in mind: no one was around.  
Huê could not technically venture out; the first reason called on logic – outside temperatures were around minus five degrees – when the second one ensued from parental authority and, therefore, ethics. Going out alone on a winter's night? Unthinkable for a young Asian woman! Although she was about to blow out her eighteen candles in the following weeks, her parents still considered her the kid of ten years ago. This eventually became stuffy, unbearable.  
Therefore, to free herself from this oppressive environment, she went out from time to time. What luck to have your room on the ground floor! What luck to have heavy sleepers as parents! Despite this, Huê still took care to leave as quietly as possible and to return at a decent hour – before the first glimmers of dawn were visible in the sky.  
When she escaped from her gold tower (that's how she liked to call it), it did not automatically imply alcohol. In fact, there was even very little of it since she was almost never invited to parties. Most of the time, she devoted it either to visit her friends and converse with them for a few hours, or to walk to the beach that was five hundred meters from her house. The Vietnamese girl always made sure to bring a small backpack containing some emergency supplies, a blanket to protect herself from potential wind gusts and a Swiss army knife "just in case". Indeed, even though she braved her parents’ decisions, she also had to stay on her guard.  
That night, it was cold. It was a winter evening; it rained, snowed, and the weather mixed with the freezing rain made the roads slippery. No sensible person would have ventured out, especially with temperatures around -5 degrees. But Huê was currently losing some braincells, and for good reason: she was in the middle of a study session for the entrance examination of a prestigious college. Staying at home to study without allowing yourself a peaceful outing to change your mind became unsustainable after three weeks.  
A short nocturnal getaway along the coast, listening to the sound of waves crashing on the rocks, watching the foam licking the sand, being alone in a place simultaneously close to civilization but also far from everything, the shore ... that was what she needed. Huê could not clearly explain why she had a deep connection with the sea. It was not because of a passion for swimming or any other aquatic sport, since she abhorred any physical exercise that required exploding her lungs. The reason lay beyond body contact and was of a metaphorical in nature: she was the sea and the sea was her.  
It was a reification of the human being. At first sight, the sea seemed to be only a simple thing: a vast body of salty water. However, if one scratched beneath the surface, they would discover that it evoked much more than that. According to the seasons, the time and the weather, it had its ebbs and flows. It was indecisive, juggling between two extremes, the tides. It sported a palette of emotions, of colors. Sometimes blue, sometimes gray, sometimes dark, sometimes translucent. The sea never appeared identical for two beings.  
Huê assimilated to this metaphor. She appeared calm in the eyes of a large audience, embodying the cliché of the studious and tight-lipped Asian girl while, deep down in her heart, a storm was unleashed. She always showed a reserved look, as if she did not want to disturb. However, the truth was that she refrained from burning her stupid notes and questioning her teachers about the usefulness of learning how to find the derivative of a function or the utility of being evaluated on the ability to run thirty minutes without a break when, at university, or even in the future, almost all of what she had learned would be of no use.   
Blood was beating in her temples at an inconstant pace, like electro music bass. One day, when the 'drop' will occur, it will let the waves of bitterness break the dikes and engulf everything on their path.  
Nevertheless, for the moment, Huê contented herself with letting off steam through the evenings. The night revealed the true face of people. The lunar glow sometimes illuminated the Vietnamese’s face, who was shouting some random song lyrics with her friends. It also revealed one of her personality traits at the same time. When the moon emitted white reflections on her ebony hair, while she sat on a bench facing the sea, it reflected another one. Huê had a palette of faces that she used depending on the circumstances. Since then, who was she really? She did not know how to answer it. Since she adapted to any context, she was a chameleon. But what was a chameleon if we omitted this distinctive trait? Here again, the question remained solitary.  
Streetlights illuminated the streets flagstones covered with snow. Very rarely, the headlights of a car stood out in this snowy landscape. It was around 10:30 PM. Lying on her bed, Huê had counted every second that was elapsing, trying to sleep, to no avail. She left her room to quench her thirst. Her father’s snoring echoed throughout the house. She believed that her mother was also in the arms of Morpheus. That meant that the way was free. Dressed warmly with slip-resistant boots and her backpack, the young woman ventured into the dark night, carefully closing the door beforehand.  
Music had, since her early years, always occupied an important place for Huê. Her mother kept telling an anecdote about her childhood in which her infant cries calmed down as soon as music was played. Gentle songs and ballads were not – contrary to what one might think – the unique musical genres capable of assuaging a spirit. Rock, jazz, rap… were just as valuable. As a result, Huê's musical repertoire had widened steadily over the years. She went along with the feeling, the vibes, rather than the performer itself. What she loved was to be completely immersed in the musical experience. This required headphones at maximum volume to be cut off from any outside noise. The problem was that the Asian could not stop herself from – for an obscure reason – constantly breaking one out of two earphones, which annoyed her a lot since she was only half-experiencing the phenomenon.

The snow was crunching under her feet at a steady pace. Crunchcrunchcrunch. It strangely provided a soothing sensation, like the electrocardiogram of a stable heart. Soon, the song of the waves tinkled in her ears and offered her a breathtaking view of a shore covered with a pristine mantle. Huê ran down the stairs. All this stretch of snow, just for her! She sprinted everywhere for the pleasure of leaving traces of her soles in her path. She sprinted and then turned on herself, laughing for no reason. She was no longer seventeen. She did not know how young she seemed at that moment. Frankly, it did not matter to her what age category she and her behavior belonged to. Laughing uncontrollably, trotting aimlessly, spinning like a snowflake; it was not strictly limited to a specific age, everyone could behave this way.   
That night, there was only her on this deserted beach. She was free, twirling, collapsing to catch her breath and then rising again the next second. That night, her parents’ expectations, her teachers, the society, they ceased to exist. Tomorrow, she would put on the mask of the daughter from a good family, next week she would be dressed in the up-and-coming adult costume, in the future, she would wear the badge of the perfectible wife. But that night was devoted to Huê, and to her only. She was free as the air, celestial as the night sky.

**Author's Note:**

> please i need your opinion


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